This 2007 photo released by Michael Stubblefield, Stubblefield poses for a photo with his sister, Shelia Russo, in New York state. Police say Russo, 47, an administrator for the Cedarville Rancheria Indian tribe, was one of four people killed when Cherie Lash Rhoades opened fire at the tribe's headquarters building in the rural northeastern California community of Alturas on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Also killed were Rhoades' brother, Rurik Davis, 50; her niece, Angel Penn, 19; and her nephew, Glenn Calonicco, 30.

This Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014 photo released by Alturas Police Department shows Cherie Lash Rhoades. Rhoades, suspected of killing four people at the headquarters of an Indian tribe that was evicting her and her son from its land, had been under federal investigation over at least $50,000 in missing funds, a person familiar with the tribe's situation told The Associated Press on Friday.

Members of the Modoc County Sheriff's Posse stand guard Friday, Feb. 21, 2014 outside the tribal headquarters of the Cedarville Rancheria in Alturas, Calif., where police say an eviction hearing turned deadly, leaving four dead and two wounded. Cherie Lash Rhoades, a former chairwoman of Cedarville Rancheria, was taken into custody after the Thursday gun and knife attack, Alturas police chief Ken Barnes said in area media reports.

CEDARVILLE, Calif. — Practically everyone in this town in the high desert of northeastern California’s Surprise Valley knew Cherie Lash Rhoades.

A leader of the Cedarville Rancheria, she worked in the tribe’s gas station and convenience store and wore brightly colored tank tops that showed off her tattoos.

But it is tough to find anyone with a kind word to say about her.

“She bullied her way through life,” said Sandra Parriott, a lifelong resident and owner of two downtown markets. “But I would never think she would start blowing people away in a meeting.”

Police arrested Rhoades on suspicion that she did just that Thursday in Alturas, leaving four dead and two wounded in a gun and knife attack at a meeting on whether to evict Rhoades from one of the nine little houses on the rancheria.

Eviction from tribal housing is serious punishments for American Indians. Though police have said they are working on a motive, a nephew who lived with her, Jacob Penn, said she snapped under the pressure of her brother trying to evict her. The brother, Rurik Davis, who lived down the street on the rancheria, had apparently taken over as tribal chairman and was among the dead.

It was not known whether Rhoades had a lawyer. She was being held at an undisclosed location because the husband of one of the dead, the only nonrelative to be shot, works at the Modoc County Jail, said Sheriff Mike Poindexter.

Rhoades has yet to appear in court, where she would be given a lawyer if she could not afford one herself. Her father, Larry Lash, declined comment.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs sent a team to Alturas on Saturday to provide grief counselling for anyone wanting it, said agency spokeswoman Nedra Darling.

As news of the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, unfolded last week, Pia Guerra, a 46-year-old Vancouver-based artist, felt helpless. She couldn’t bring herself to go to sleep, so she began to draw.

Police who find suspected drugs during a traffic stop or an arrest usually pause to perform a simple task: They place some of the material in a vial filled with liquid. If the liquid turns a certain color, it’s supposed to confirm the presence of cocaine, heroin or other narcotics.